Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

John Carney, Man Of Economics

Via Megan McArdle, we see that John Carney now writes for CNBC's blog. The two belong together. I came across a column on Carney recently and at first thought that I was reading a cutting bit of snark, but I finally realized that I was reading his biography on Business Insider.

His writing often takes controversial positions on business topics. He has argued that failed banks should not be bailed out, Lehman’s collapse was not a disaster, AIG should be declared bankrupt, that naked short selling is not a problem, that backdating isn't so bad, insider trading should be legal, many corporate CEOs are underpaid, global solutions are worse than local solutions, Warren Buffett is overrated, Michael Milken is a great American, the collapse of the hedge fund was not a scandal, hedge funds are over-regulated, education is overrated by the educated, bonuses at successful Wall Street's firms are deserved and possibly undersized, management buyouts are boons to the economy, Enron's management was victimized by an over-zealous prosecution, Sarbanes-Oxley should be repealed, corporate compliance culture is a disaster, shareholder democracy is overrated, hostile takeovers ought to be revived, the market is permanently moving away from public ownership of equity in corporations, private partnerships are on the rise, public ignorance is encouraged and manipulated by governments and corporations, experts overrate expertise, regulatory agencies are controlled by the businesses they supposedly regulate, the Community Reinvestment Act helped create the mortgage mess, the problem with ratings agencies isn't how they are compensated, the structure of banker bonuses didn't cause the economic crisis, the unintended consequences of international Basel capital requirements were devastating, the first time house buyer credit is a mistake, pay caps at bailed out financial institutions are fine, the commercial real estate crisis was caused S&L bailout and Wall Street is much more fun than people give it credit for.

He actually admits that in public. Worse, he seems proud of it.

Carney is quite a fan of McArdle. When McArdle's family connections were discussed in Exile he leaped to her defense. No doubt his posting of a picture of Megan Fox instead of Megan McArdle was an error in Editing. I would hate to think Carney's got a Dr. Hfuhruhurr thing going on.